2 water pumps in Waila were not pumping efficiently which led to a major water disruption in the past two weeks in the Suva and Nausori areas - WAF

The Water Authority of Fiji has highlighted that two of their five water pumps were not pumping efficiently which led to a major water disruption in the past two weeks in the Suva to Nausori corridor.

WAF’s Chief Operating Officer, Seru Soderberg says on the 4th of December they had thought that it was a major burst main, so they tracked back and in doing that they noted that there were no bursts, but the problem was with the two water pumps.

Soderberg says when they did their measurements they noted that the inflow was a lot less than the normal amount which is around 107 million litres a day, and at that time they found out that they were producing 100 million and missing out 7 million litres of water.

He says they fixed one of the pumps on the 5th of this month and rectified an electrical fault on the second pump a day later.

Soderberg says in the process of recovering the Tamavua and Waila Water supply system, they faced turbidity issues which affected their production.

He says their normal production is 69 to 71 mega litres a day for the customers that feed of the Tamavua Water Treatment Plant, but unfortunately on that day their production dropped to 60 mega litres.

Soderberg says this was a significant drop and it affected their services to people in the greater Lami Area from Delainavesi to the Navy Camp and most of the customers from Samabula North which is from FNU onwards.

He says this also affected customers on elevated areas such as Tamavua and Namadi.

Soderberg says they only managed to recover the system when the turbidity issue dropped on the 9th of this month, and on the 11th there was another turbidity issue.

He says for this, they had to cut back water production from the Waila Water Treatment just to make sure that the water being produced are safe.

Soderberg says if they continued to produce at that level, people would actually get brown water which becomes unsafe for human consumption.

He says as long as there is any farming in the villages up the Waimanu River, there will still be turbidity issues because natural filters are being removed in the process of clearing land.

When questioned by fijivillage if turbidity will always be an issue as long as there is farming upstream the Waimanu River, Soderberg says this is where the Viria Water Project comes in to fix the issue.